Oh my! If anyone would have told me how much my life would have changed in a year just a year ago, I may not have believed them. I do not even have time to sit and think anymore, so many triumphs and challenges, so many adventures and so many friends met along the way. I think I have come to truly understand what friendship really means and how to cherish it because true friends are very far and few between. I never realized how blessed I am to have ones I have in my life there until I started leaving my comfort zone and even leaving the country.
I can never really put down into words the adventures of this last year. But over a couple of entries I shall try. That is if I do not get distracted again. Right know I am in my most trying month of graduate school. I just got back from the UK and had to jump into summer classes. From the moment I began the masters program, I knew ethics and stats would be the most difficult classes for me so jumping straight into them from a trip outside the country on top of coming back into work without blinking an eye and having one month of compacted studies... Well if I survive, I will be amazed. ;)
In less than a month, I will have completed my first year as a graduate student. I never in a million years thought I was smart enough to get my masters but after the series of events that led me to Stetson, I felt ready. In the first orientation meeting, we were told we will not leave the same people that we entered and I smiled at that because it just sounded like another speech that you hear at any beginning of any program. But I should have considered that this was a counseling program and a year later, I really have changed. My view on people have changed, my view on myself have changed and even my passions in life have changed. I still love Jesus and still love people and babies and pets but I have developed into a stronger person. I am not as submissive and passive, I am not a doormat. I will stand up for what I believe and I won't let people take advantage of me. I also stand up for others that I see people take advantage of and I want to protect them (hence my passions changing). I see people who have disabilities differently and I want them to have a voice, I want to be a voice for those who don't have a voice and I will figure out how to make that happen.
I still want to work with children but I know how I want to do that now. I know the theories I want to prescribe to (person centered, Gestalt, and Adlerian mainly) and I want to use Play Therapy to work with the children and youth who have been abused and abandoned and are traumatized. I understand other training I will need to go through to understand what they have been through but my empathy and caring persona will help me go far in therapy. I know I do not respond well to REBT so I will not use it in counseling but I am glad I had that experience of figuring that out as well as I met a REBT therapist.
I have had to dissect my family and understand my roots. I have found out so much about both sides of my family and have learned so much about myself through that. It was amazing and intriguing at the same time.
I even went to London and Edinburgh in May for 10 days to a conference. That was an experience and a half. Without this program, I may never have been brave enough to take that adventure. (that is a whole post within itself).
A year into the program, I can tell you who I am becoming as a counselor (kind of) and who I want to be as a person.... but hopefully I am living it out to those that are in my life. When I am not so swamped with my busy schedule that is ;)
More next time ;)
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